


the time that's yours lies heavy in your hands

by owilde



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Depression, Dialogue Light, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Sleepless nights, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, sometimes people get sad and binge TV together, this is that time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 14:21:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13526112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owilde/pseuds/owilde
Summary: “What time is it?” Dan asks, letting his gaze drift to the ceiling.“Five.” Phil doesn’t sound angry or annoyed; tired, if anything. He shuffles over to the couch and sits down, lifting Dan’s feet to his lap. “Nightmares?”Dan shakes his head slightly. “Just… couldn’t sleep anymore.”





	the time that's yours lies heavy in your hands

**Author's Note:**

> lmao three other wips in progress WHOMST
> 
> title taken from ultravox's "One Small Day", a very cheery 80s song about depression

There are people, Dan thinks, who can sit down and simply _be_. People who can let their thoughts dwindle down and relax into the softness of a couch, wrap themselves in a blanket and enjoy a cup of detox tea with mint leaves and a row of dark chocolate. Those people can wake up early, have breakfast, go to work, have decent social interactions and come back home to make dinner and let go of the day’s stress.

Dan is not one of those people.

Instead, what he does is that he wakes up at four in the morning, after having fallen asleep at one-thirty, to a sinking feeling of dread and nothingness, and stops himself from crying. The room is dark around him, the blinds drawn. Phil's sleeping next to him, snoring gently, an arm thrown casually over Dan's stomach. He slowly rolls over in the bed, trying not to wake Phil up, and makes his way to the bathroom, his footsteps too loud.

The reflection of him stares back for a few seconds, tired and haunting, before Dan averts his eyes and splashes his face with water. It does virtually nothing, except make him feel like he’s following an unspoken and inaccessible manual of _This Is How You’re Meant to Be Depressed._ No one ever gave him a copy, but it feels that he’s still trying to live according to its principles, as if he’s trying to prove to himself and others that really, he’s not fine at all, honestly, look, here’s proof.

It’s an exhausting habit to break out of, but he’s trying. He’s trying to live as he does and let the chips fall where they may. Sometimes, it’s more difficult. Sometimes, he’s still trying to read the manual, but the manual is upside down and in a different language, and on fire.

But he’s trying. And that’s what’s supposed to count.

Dan flicks the bathroom lights off and wanders into the living room, flopping down on the couch. It groans softly underneath him, but the protests die down as he lies still, fingers crossed on top of his stomach. His right ankle itches, but he doesn’t move. Instead, he closes his eyes.

He’s not tired, not really. He _feels_ tired, his limbs aching and his eyes heavy, but he’s not tired in the sense that he could sleep. Sometimes, it’s the other way around. Sometimes, he’s _too_ tired, and it fucks everything up when it comes to scheduling or living a normal life.

Phil always says he doesn’t mind. That it’s alright.

It’s not.

Dan stays like that for what feels like hours but is probably closer to minutes, lying still in the eerie quietness of their empty living room. There’s minute traffic outside, an occasional shout and a beep and string of laughter before they disappear down the street. It’s Saturday morning, so it makes sense, he supposes. But days have slowly sort of lost their meaning to him. Most things have.

His eyes fly open when he hears the floor creak. Dan glances at the doorway and finds Phil there, rubbing his eyes, in the middle of a yawn. His hair’s standing up, and he’s wearing his glasses, and there’s a stain of jam on his pyjama shirt. It’s so humane that Dan wants to cry, because even though it’s been years, it still feels like a fucking miracle that he sees all of this, all of Phil, every day.

“What time is it?” Dan asks, letting his gaze drift to the ceiling.

“Five.” Phil doesn’t sound angry or annoyed; tired, if anything. He shuffles over to the couch and sits down, lifting Dan’s feet to his lap. “Nightmares?”

Dan shakes his head slightly. “Just… couldn’t sleep anymore.”

Phil hums in understanding – whether he really understands or not, Dan doesn’t know and never will. He hopes that he does, because otherwise he’s just a massive fucking twat, isn’t he? But if Phil gets it, gets _this,_ even a snippet of it, then it’s sort of better.

“TV?” Phil suggests, craning his head to look at Dan. His glasses are slightly askew, in the way that Dan knows annoys Phil but delights Dan in how endearing it is.

“If you want to,” Dan says. His chest, which feels hollow, aches a little. “I mean, I don’t—yeah. TV sounds good.”

The look that Phil fixes him is not accusatory, in the most literal sense of the word – it’s more of a gentle scold. “We don’t have to,” he says. “You know that, right? We don’t have to do anything. We can just sit, and wait until it’s an appropriate time to have breakfast.”

Dan scoffs. “For us, that’s at like, two in the afternoon.”

Phil smiles, almost. “We could play at being functional adults for once,” he suggests. “Have breakfast at eight, go for a walk, do work.”

“It’s not that kind of a day,” Dan tells him. He feels it, in his gut. “Not today.”

“That’s fine.” Phil does smile, now, his eyes crinkling a little. “Tomorrow, maybe. Or maybe not. It doesn’t matter.” He pauses. “So, TV?”

They end up sitting side by side, Phil’s head nestled in the crook of Dan’s neck, as an old episode of _Friends_ plays in the background. Dan’s not really watching any of it, mostly zoning out, but he’s startled awake every once in a while because of Phil’s laughter, and the gentle shaking of his body when something particularly amusing happens.

It passes the time, which is the most Dan can say for it. Before he knows it, it’s a little past eight. Phil switches the TV off and stands up, stretching his arms above his head. Dan remains still, legs crossed and his back hurting.

Phil gives him a glance, utterly nondescript and unreadable, even to Dan, before the corner of his mouth twitches into a brief smile. “I’ll make something,” he says. “Just get to the kitchen, yeah?”

He leaves before Dan can reply, leaving him with a sense of unease that’s difficult to wash down. It’s hard to tell whether Phil genuinely doesn’t mind dealing with his shit, or whether he’s trying to make the best out of a bad situation, or both, or something else entirely. With Phil, any question including an _if_ tends to spiral out of control with its possibilities.

Dan knows that Phil loves him. It would be ridiculous to not know, after all this time. But knowing and accepting are two very different things, and Dan’s mind likes to play these tricks on him, loves a game of loves me, loves me not every now and then. And then all he’s left with is a bunch of petals and no real answers or sense of direction.

He makes his way into the kitchen five minutes later and sidles into one of the unnecessarily uncomfortable chairs they have, bouncing his leg.

Phil’s making scrambled eggs. Dan’s pretty sure he might’ve preferred toast, but his appetite has gone tits up, so it’s difficult to say, really. The smell is enough to make him dizzy, but he bites the inside of his cheek and stares at the kitchen table, silent.

“Toast?” Phil asks after a while, not turning to look back at him.

“Sure.” Dan’s not so sure about the toast anymore, but the word has left his mouth and he can’t take it back. “Just one, though,” he amends.

Phil places the plate in front of him after a few more minutes, and sits down opposite to him. They eat in a comfortable silence, broken only by the cluttering of the cutlery. The sun’s beginning to climb up, casting beams of lights across the parquet.

Dan wonders how it would look like from the outside, this picture they’ve found themselves in. Would all the nuances of it bleed through, or would it look like a couple enjoying breakfast after a good night’s sleep, well rested and happy? Do the lines of his face betray him? The exhaustion etched into the pull of Phil’s mouth?

“What are you thinking about?” Phil asks, scooping the last bit of his eggs into his mouth.

Dan shrugs. “Nothing. Us. It’s not important.”

“Are you saying we’re not important?” Phil sounds amused, more than anything, but Dan feels something flare in his chest.

“No,” he protests. “I mean, we are. You are, to me. I mean—just—yeah.”

Phil collects their plates, the amused smile still playing on his face. “I know,” he reassures Dan. “Don’t… don’t think about it too much.”

“Easier said than done,” Dan mumbles under his breath.

“I know,” Phil repeats, gentler this time. His face sobers up. “Dan, I—” He cuts himself off, pursing his lips. “You know that I don’t mind any of this, right?” He tries again. “I get tired sometimes, yeah, of some things – sometimes more than tired. But I wouldn’t trade this for anything. None of it.”

Dan looks at him, at the creases on his skin and the bits of brown in his roots, the chipped off piece missing from the right arm of his glasses. “I know,” he promises. “It’s just that sometimes I forget.”

“It’s alright. I forget sometimes, too, that we’re in this together.”

Dan smiles at the table. “Well, it might just be ‘cause you’re such an old man—”

Phil lets out an affronted gasp, smacking him lightly on the arm. “I’m a respectable thirty-year-old, thank you very much,” he huffs. “I won’t listen to this kind of slander at nine in the morning.”

“But at any other time you will?”

Phil shakes his head, fondly. “From you, yeah.”

“Don’t I feel special,” Dan says, absent-mindedly. He leans back on the chair and tilts his head to look out the window at the sight of London waking up.

“You are.”

“Call back,” Dan retorts, not moving his gaze. “Should we go take a nap?”

He hears Phil sigh, but he doesn’t sound tired of Dan’s bullshit, which Dan counts as a victory. “At nine in the morning?”

Dan shrugs. “Why not?” He turns back to look at Phil, raising a brow.

“Yeah.” Phil shrugs, a small smile forming on his face. “Why not.”


End file.
